It says a lot that the way I took a break from marking exams was by marking paragraphs.

As an experiment, I’ve agreed to do some online marking that allows me to work from home. The problem is, the online marking works a much different schedule than my day job.

The other problem is, that if I put off doing either the exams or the online marking, I end up sitting at my desk marking questionable writing.

Today, I had a good burst of energy, which means I carefully balanced my carbs-to-coffee ratio, and managed to finish exams I picked up just yesterday. Luckily, I have two lower level classes, which means I have reduced class sizes and that made finishing a little bit easier.

However, after I finished the fronts (our tests have short answer on the front and essay/long writing on the back) I decided to mark some paragraphs as part of my part-time job.

For this job, students submit paragraphs via an oddly counter-intuitive email system and I spend a couple hours marking their mistakes before sending the file back to them for revision.

The main advantage is that the online work is typed, not handwritten, which makes it physically easier to read. Sometimes students use hard lead that is hard to read on cheap copy paper.;

I have more paragraphs to finish tomorrow. I’ll probably save them until I need a break.